THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 263 



tion was, therefore, to determine how much 

 cash, if any, in addition to the free admission of 

 fish and fish-oil, would make a fair compensa 

 tion for the privilege of the inshore fishing. 

 The commission to whom the matter was re 

 ferred made its decision at Halifax on Novem 

 ber 23, 1877, and awarded $5,500,000 in gold 

 to Great Britain. This award was regarded as 

 excessive and unfair by many well-informed 

 persons in the United States, and its validity 

 was questioned on technical grounds by some; 

 but the government duly paid the sum and 

 closed the incident. 



This Halifax commission completed the re 

 markable series of judicial proceedings of an 

 international character through which the jolts 

 and displacements caused by the Civil War were 

 corrected and compensated, and the relations 

 of the English-speaking peoples were restored 

 to the plane of official and, in a greater degree 

 than ever before, of real amity. The adjust 

 ment in respect to the fisheries was, of course, 

 less closely and exclusively than the other 

 arbitrations related to the Civil War. The 

 difficulty that made the issue was destined to 

 remain, as it had been for a century, a source of 

 irritation and disturbance for an indefinite 



